Yasuke True Story: The First Foreign Samurai Explained

Netflix’s anime series Yasuke introduces the real-life figure of Japan’s first African samurai to American audiences. It’s rare to see an anime that prominently features Black characters and even rarer to see them in the protagonist role, so the series presents a significant step for representation in the genre. The show should excite fans of anime and Japanese history alike, placing fantastical elements amongst a backdrop of actual historical events.

Yasuke is quite the collaboration of creative heavyweights. The show was developed by the prolific LeSean Thomas, an animation extraordinaire who has designed characters for and co-directed episodes of The Boondocks and who was a storyboard artist for The Legend of Korra. While working on Cannon Busters, another anime on Netflix, the company approached Thomas and asked him if he had any ideas for another show on the streaming service. Thomas, who currently lives in Tokyo, worked with the Japanese animation studio MAPPA to produce the series, which is available in both English and Japanese dubs.

LaKeith Stanfield, who recently landed an Oscar nomination for his role in Judas and the Black Messiah and who has garnered critical acclaim for his wide-varied performances in everything from Get Out to Sorry to Bother You to Knives Out, takes on the lead voice role of Yasuke himself. Steven Ellison, more popularly known as the experimental electronic musician Flying Lotus, is the soundtrack composer as well as an executive producer who contributed to the show’s overall creative direction. The story itself takes place in an alternate history with magic and mechs, but despite these creative liberties, the concept is still very much inspired by historical accounts.

Who Is Yasuke? Real-Life Backstory

The real man known as Yasuke arrived in Japan in the year 1579 accompanying an Italian Jesuit missionary named Alessandro Valignano. The background of the warrior’s life is shrouded in mystery, but he probably spent most of his pre-samurai time in the Portuguese-controlled Indian territory of Goa as a slave trained in combat. The general consensus seems to be that he was from Mozambique, which was a Portuguese colony at the time, but researchers have also theorized that he may have been Ethiopian or Sudanese.

Yasuke’s appearance in Japan occurred during a remarkable time in the country’s history when open trade with Portuguese merchants, called “Nanban” by the Japanese, led to cultural exchange. Unlike the European traders and missionaries focused on introducing their own religion, it seems as if Yasuke had a more open-minded attitude about Japanese culture and attracted attention with his more approachable personality. Yasuke was most likely the first African that most Japanese people from the period saw, and his dark skin and tall stature (around six feet tall) drew crowds looking for a spectacle. However, the man was also intelligent, highly cultured, and skilled in battle, so it wasn’t long before his impressive command of the Japanese language and fighting prowess drew him close to one of the most powerful and influential leaders in Japan.

Yasuke’s Time As A Samurai In Japan Explained

Yasuke wasn’t just a samurai to any old lord, he was a close confidante of the feudal warlord (daimyo) Oda Nobunaga, the closest thing Japan had to a single ruler during a period of civil strife and political disunion called the Sengoku period. Nobunaga’s love of the arts made him an instant companion to Yasuke, who shared a similar affinity for storytelling, performance, and, perhaps most importantly, the martial arts. Within a year of meeting Nobunaga in 1581, Yasuke was dining in the same chamber and riding in the same battles as the daimyo.

Yasuke participated in military campaigns that included Nobunaga’s final battle against the rival Takeda clan as well as the invasion of Iga province, a ninja training ground. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to serve for very long before Nobunaga’s ritual suicide in 1582, when the general Akechi Mitsuhide betrayed his lord and tried to seize power with a rebel army. The fact that Yasuke was present during this significant and dramatic event is more proof of his important and noble position, but his fate afterward is shrouded in mystery. Enemy forces probably captured Yasuke but released him on account of his foreign status; the former samurai was now a ronin without anyone to serve. He might have gone back to a Jesuit mission church in Kyoto, but Yasuke’s life following the death of Nobunaga has been the subject of often dramatized speculation.

How Netflix’s Yasuke Compares To The True Story

The story in Netflix’s Yasuke takes place during the time when Yasuke was a ronin, though flashbacks show the tragic relationship between him and Nobunaga. These insights into Yasuke’s short-lived but honorable time as a samurai bear the closest resemblance to real-life accounts. Nobunaga really did try to scrub his skin because he thought it was black ink, and the Iga clan was really one of the forces that Yasuke met in battle. Of course, these elements have been dramatized to develop the show’s fantasy world. There’s no indication that the first meeting of Yasuke and Nobunaga is at the Nanban trade port that Yasuke arrived at, and though Yasuke may have been at Nobunaga’s side at the end, the samurai never cut off his head.

The character of Natsumara, the besshikime (female bodyguard) who befriends then betrays Yasuke in loyalty of her native Iga clan, was also not real, but the moral issue she raises about Nobunaga’s quest for “unity” poses legitimate historical questions. The show is ultimately about Yasuke coming to terms with his complicated relationship with Nobunaga, an open-minded but brutal leader. In this sense, the show builds on what little we do know about Yasuke’s time as a samurai in order to create a living character. Since the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman has seemed to stop MGM’s production on the Yasuke biopic, Netflix’s Yasuke anticipates what may be Western audiences’ first encounter with the famed warrior. Hopefully, it won’t be the last, as the show is scheduled to run for multiple seasons.

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